Thoughts on the upcoming 2.3 patch

First, I saw a Blue comment on the forum (but can’t find it now) which basically said the delay will be much shorter. Something to the effect of most of 2.2’s delay was due to voice chat problems, and much of 2.3 has been worked upon already. Now how soon will we see it? Sooner than the Lich, but beyond that…

That out of the way, there are six definite changes mentioned – as in, they’re going to happen in general but there are balance tests yet to do for the little details. I want to look at each of them.
Racials. Every priest will get fear ward at 20. That, we pretty much all knew. What most of us did NOT know was that the Dwarves and Draenai are getting a replacement. Chastise. Holy damage and a 2 second incapacitation (stun or some such). A 2 second interrupt. Yum. The wailing on the forums is already hard on the ears… Oh – the fear ward itself is being nerfed. Won’t last as long, and the cooldown is going to be a tiny bit longer.

Power Word: Shield will be affected by +heal and +damage. I’m wondering if the bonus from Improved PW:S will apply before or after the gear bonuses — both are used in different places.

Speaking of finally getting +heal (and +damage), add CoH, PoH and (wow) Holy Nova (healing only – so far) to the list. A downside exists, however, in that all three are supposed to have their base numbers slightly nerfed. Current thought is that +1338 (going one better than 1337, I guess) will be breakeven. For Circle and Prayer that makes sense. For Holy Nova, well, that’s so low on the food chain it make the spell nearly worthless for lower levels. ON THE OTHER HAND… I don’t see 1338 being breakeven. 42.6% of 1338 is 569, which is over 100 more than the average for the highest Holy Nova. My guess is that the number will actually be higher. Which may turn that spell into something useful even if it’s +heal only that gains. Remember, kiddies — Holy Nova generates zero threat. So half the heal per mana but NO aggro. Decisions, decision…

One more +heal item — +heal will generate +damage (allegedly for most if not all classes). Current thought is 1/3 heal translates as damage. The intent is supposedly that healers shouldn’t need two sets of gear, not when so much higher level is unique (EITHER the damage+heal version OR the heal only version). A couple of additional comments indicate this will be across all classes, not just for priests – or even just healers. Still, it’s something to anticipate.

The Disc 41 talent is suddenly going to be under serious examination by players, not just the high-survival Disc priest. It’s being nerfed from 65% damage reduction to 40%. In return, it can be cast on other players. 8 seconds of 40% damage mitigation on your tank… There is a downside to be taken into account, however. 5% reduction of threat.

Last, the one that’s going to cause a bunch of people to go nuts. Pretty much every class that has an equivalent is seeing an equivalent change. Oh, sorry – meditation is going from 5/10/15% to 10/20/30%. Which means a 200 mp5 OFSR goes from the current 30 mp5 to 60 mp5. Every single article by every pundit out here right now that tries to weight spirit vs mp5 is, well, they’re going to be rendered obsolete. Assuming 100% time in combat, the current rating of SPI to MP5 is 10 2/3 (or rounded 11): 1. That is, you need 11 SPI to get 1 mp5 in full-time combat. (11/4 = 2.75 *2.5 = 6.875 *15% = 1.03125). At a new level of 5.333:1… wow.

Those are the ones mentioned – for priest, for now. Every class is getting a stack of “this is going to happen” notices, so don’t hesitate to look around the forums. (There’s a sticky, no comments allowed, at the top of each class forum on “2.3 Changes for [class]”.)

I’m going to end this with my personal talent/spell adjustment wish. I wish that everybody’s target changer – fade, taunt, and so on and so forth – would affect pvp. Oh, nothing major (like what happens to PVE) just… for “always” effect like Taunt, the player’s target is changed to the taunter. For things like fade, players who have the priest as their target have the target cleared. (target = notarget) – possibly being untargetable for a short period of time, though that may become too much. Want to see tanks become POPULAR in PVP? It’s still not threat generation/lock, but it would definitely make a difference in how they’re treated…

6 Responses to “Thoughts on the upcoming 2.3 patch”

Good comments, as always. Most of these changes seem to be positive. However, if you don’t mind, I’d like to take a moment to condense my own psychic wail, before I venture into the forums.

I’ve only recently hit 61 but I’ve spent a significant portion of that time in BGs, and I have to say… the possibility of that racial really hurts. Now, I’ve never moaned about racials before. Elune’s grace is near useless, but starshards is one of my favourite spells (currently, with my gear and spec, it’s close to 5:1 damage to mana, and a respectable 250 or so dps – great for grinding, and with thoroughly respectable, if situational, instance and pvp use). Never having had fear ward, I’ve never missed it, although in principle I understand why it was such a bone of contention.

However… *now* I feel the pain. What is so galling about the possibility is that over and over again, Blizzard have asked for feedback about priest problems and over and over again, priests from both sides – shadow/heal and horde/alliance – have asked (along with the usual gibberish about holy form) for a single target, short term, stun. It was agreed that 2 seconds to get a little distance from a rogue or drop the gheal that will save you from the pyroblast was all that was needed.

Now, obviously, implementation will count for a lot, but given the intrinsic usefulness of the spell as described, it’ll have to cost 1000 mana and be on a 5 minute cooldown before it stops being an object of desire for me. Starshards is a very useful addition to my armory, but it IS an addition; I have plenty of other ways to do damage. It doesn’t add new (and necessary, IM PvP O) functionality.

It just seems… perverse… to resolve a much debated fairness issue about one set of priests having access to something desired by all priests by spreading it around and then replacing it with… something desired by all priests.

Sorry to hijack the post, but I wanted to think it through a little. You’ve stayed away from the whole racials issue – wisely I think – but any additional thoughts would be appreciated.

@RaydenUni – no word, yet. I suspect as significant as this is we’ll see a lot of tweaks, so I’m hesitant to start any major theorycrafting. However, if I were wagering I’d wager against Shadow helping Shield.

@dapriesta – first, thank you. As to the thoughts… yeah, my gut feeling is similar. As I said there is a deafening din of posts (so to speak) saying something similar on the forums. Again, we’ll just have to wait and see. And I may have to finish leveling my Draenai alt-priest…

Well, the post did focus my understanding of the issue; I think the main issue with the old fearward situation was the additional functionality; by comparison, even the much envied Devouring Plague is just another dot. I was all set to post when I checked the blue thread on the EU forums. There’s an update:

Elune’s Grace (Night Elf Priest Racial) effect changed to reduce chance to be hit by melee and ranged attacks by 20% for 15 seconds. There is now only 1 rank of the spell.

This rather changes matters. For the very first time someone actually said ‘Nerf Nelf racials.’ 20%.

Nelfs lose (at rank 6) the ability to stop 167 ranged damage. In exchange, they go from +10% dodge to +20% miss. Not only a 10% better chance of not getting hit, but a successful dodge is bad facing certain classes – like warriors, for example.

That’s nerf as in ‘That nelf racial is op. Please nerf'; I meant that I think it’s an improvement. Bad against warriors, yes, sometimes, although specials asides, more dodge + shield = less rage. Against ‘orrible haste rogues and their attack blizzards, very solid. Against fast hitting melee mobs when grinding, worth popping every time the cooldown is up. Not huge, but nothing like a nerf…

About…

I've experience with many priests of many races and specs on several servers. The more I play, the more I realize how much I do not yet know. This is a share of some of what I have learned.
My main these days is Zingiber on the Undermine server.